Custom software: what it really costs

Custom software: what it costs, and what drives the price#

You're looking for the price of custom software, and you keep hitting a wall. No catalog, no price tag, just ranges so wide they mean nothing. That's normal. A tool built for you can't be ordered off the shelf, so it can't be priced off the shelf either. That doesn't make the budget a mystery. It follows a precise logic, and we're going to walk you through it, straight.

SaaS or custom: the trade-off, plainly#

The first question that always comes up is the match between an off-the-shelf subscription and a custom build. At the start, a SaaS solution looks unbeatable: a few dozen euros a month, and off you go. The math holds as long as you stay small. As soon as your team grows, the per-user licenses pile up. And above all, you spend your time bending your ways of working to fit the tool's boxes, instead of the other way around.

Custom business software does exactly the opposite: it fits the way you work. The return on investment shows quickly, in admin hours saved and data-entry errors avoided. A telling example: for a French bakery opening several locations, we built an ordering platform that unifies the website, the in-store till and the delivery apps in a single dashboard. It's the tool that runs the business every day. That's what business software is.

What really drives the price#

Between a small client portal and a platform handling thousands of orders a day, the budget can vary tenfold. It all depends on what the tool has to do. To give you a sense of the range of what we build in the workshop, here's what weighs most on the bill.

To set some concrete markers, here are our ballpark figures, backed by delivered projects:

These figures are starting points, not quotes. Now here's what makes them move.

The first factor is the number and complexity of features. Real-time behavior, custom algorithms, a touch of artificial intelligence: all of that takes work. A carpooling platform with real-time ride matching and built-in payment simply doesn't compare to a basic contact form.

The second is the need to talk to your existing systems through APIs (the bridges that let two pieces of software exchange data): your ERP, your CRM, your accounting, your till. The more your tool has to plug into other software, the longer the job. On the bakery's platform, connecting the till and the delivery platforms was a whole chapter of the project on its own.

The third is standards and the level of security. GDPR, sensitive data, regulatory compliance: none of that gets bolted on at the end. For a prize-draw platform with verifiable draws and full compliance, those requirements shape the entire build from day one.

Then there's the care put into the interface, the UX and UI work. A journey that's clear, pleasant, and never loses the user takes real design work, and it counts in the quote as much as in the result.

Who builds your tool, and why it matters#

Once the need is set, you have to choose who builds. Two classic routes. A freelancer, ideal for a small, well-defined project. Or an agency, which lines up a full team but where you rarely talk to the person writing the code: a project manager relays the messages, and yours sometimes gets lost along the way.

There's a third route. A workshop where you talk directly to the person who designs and codes your project, from the first sketch to launch. No middleman, no game of telephone. The hand that builds is the same one that answers you. For a business owner, that's often what separates a project under control from a project that drifts.

On rates, a useful benchmark: our workshop is based in France, where the daily rate of a full-stack developer generally sits between €450 and €850 excluding VAT, depending on expertise and technologies. Roughly $500 to $950, and often well below what an equivalent profile bills in the US or the UK. It's an order of magnitude, not a quote. Then comes the contract type. Fixed price sets a cost for a fixed scope, perfect when the specification is rock solid. Time and materials bills for the hours worked, ideal when the project needs to evolve along the way. One protects your cash flow, the other your flexibility.

The cost doesn't stop at launch#

The most common mistake is budgeting only for the months of creation. Custom software isn't a poster you put up and forget. It's a living structure that evolves with you. So you have to think in total cost of ownership, over its whole lifespan.

Plan for 15 to 20% of the initial cost every year for maintenance: security updates, fixes, adapting to new browsers, small improvements. Add hosting, from a few hundred to a few thousand euros a year depending on your traffic and data volume.

Set the maintenance budget aside from day one, not once the tool is delivered. A yearly envelope planned in advance saves you from the guillotine effect, when a forgotten budget blocks improvements at the worst possible time.

And a frank word about code quality, because we believe in it. Handing the project to the lowest bidder almost always costs more in the end. Poorly built code piles up what's called technical debt. Reworking a shaky architecture or fixing bugs on repeat costs far more than laying clean foundations from the start. We build to last, precisely to spare you that.

How to hold your budget without cutting corners#

Good news: you can keep spending under control with a bit of method. Three reflexes change everything.

01 — Launch an MVP before the full tool#

Don't chase the perfect tool on the first try. Ship a first version with the vital functions (that's what MVP means: a minimum viable product), then add modules based on real feedback from the field. That's how we moved forward on the bakery's platform, foundations first, the rest plugs in later. The same principle carried a Discord bot present on hundreds of servers, started from a solid core then enriched until it climbed to the top of its rankings.

02 — Put decisions in one person's hands#

Appoint someone on your side who has the final say. A clear decision avoids the back-and-forth that inflates the bill and slows the whole project down.

03 — Validate everything on mockups before the code#

Moving a button or rethinking a journey on a mockup costs almost nothing. Doing it once the code is written sends the bill soaring.

In the end, pricing custom software is mostly a matter of framing and honesty. The clearer your need, the fairer the budget. And the spend should always be measured against what it brings back: time saved, fewer errors, a tool that grows with you instead of holding you back.

Got a project in mind? Tell us in a few words what you want to build, and we'll tell you how we'd go about it.

Let's talk about your project

Frequently asked questions#